(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to manufacturer's offers (traditionally known as “coupons”) and, more particularly, to a manufacturer's offer redemption system (the “system”) used to validate and verify manufacturer's offers and authenticate manufacturer's offer redemption transactions.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
Manufacturer's offers (or “offers” or “coupons”) have become a valuable marketing tool for manufacturers and retailers seeking to increase sales and collect consumer demographic information. Although manufacturer's offers were first introduced decades ago, the process for redeeming manufacturer's offers has remained relatively unchanged. The traditional manufacturer's offer redemption process typically involves consumer collection of published manufacturer's offers, often found in Sunday newspapers, direct mailings, and other publications. Manufacturer's offers are presented for redemption by the consumer to a retailer at the retailer's cash register when making a purchase. The manufacturer's offers generally are inspected by the retailer's cashier to confirm the expiration date. Sometimes, but not regularly, the cashier may choose to review the purchased products to determine whether or not the consumer actually purchased the products (in the correct sizes, quantities, and/or combinations) required by the manufacturer's offers. The cashier then manually enters the values of the manufacturer's offers in the cash register for subtraction from the total purchase price.
The manufacturer's offers collected by retailers then are manually sorted and returned to the manufacturers for reimbursement. Typically, this is done by a professional clearinghouse. Retailers bundle together redeemed manufacturer's offers and ship them to the clearinghouse. The clearinghouse then sorts the manufacturer's offers by manufacturer and retailer and forwards the manufacturer's offers to the correct manufacturer along with an invoice for payment. The manufacturer generally reviews the manufacturer's offers for evidence of fraud (for example, a large number of evenly cut offers) or other irregularities and then issues checks to the retailers, through the clearinghouse, based on the number of manufacturer's offers that the manufacturer deems valid. If some manufacturer's offers are deemed invalid, the retailers will not be paid for such offers. This is known as a “chargeback.” Such chargebacks then typically are deducted from retailers' future payments to the manufacturer for products delivered to the retailers. This time-consuming process creates additional costs for manufacturers, retailers, and, ultimately and ironically, consumers.
Not only is the traditional prior art manufacturer's offer redemption process costly, it is replete with opportunities to defraud manufacturers on various levels. For example, with the advent of relatively inexpensive and high-quality personal computer equipment, manufacturer's offers may be forged. Additionally, consumers may submit expired manufacturer's offers or manufacturer's offers for products, sizes, quantities, and/or combinations that were not actually purchased. That is, traditional methods of manufacturer's offer redemption do not correlate a specific product sale to each specific redeemed manufacturer's offer at the time of redemption at the retailer. Moreover, it has recently been reported that fraudulent manufacturer's offer redemption schemes may have financed terrorist activities.
In response to the spread of fraudulent redemption of manufacturer's offers, the prior art has seen several systems developed to counter fraud. For example, universal product codes (“UPCs”) and UCC/EAN-128 coupon extended codes have been added to many manufacturer's offers. Manufacturer's offers encoded with UPCs and UCC/EAN-128 coupon extended codes can be scanned by both traditional and customized point-of-sale (“POS”) barcode readers. The UPC and UCC/EAN-128 coupon extended code data may include the manufacturer's offer expiration date, offer value, the required size and quantity, and the like. It is expected that within the next several years, UPC and UCC/EAN-128 coupon extended codes maybe supplanted by reduced space symbology (“RSS”) barcodes which allow even more data to be stored in the same amount of space.
In some prior art retailer POS systems, the values of the manufacturer's offers are automatically deducted from the total purchase price using a scanning device to scan barcoded manufacturer's offers. Other prior art systems provide that as a manufacturer's offer is scanned, it may be checked against a database file to ensure that it is a valid offer. Some prior art systems even go so far as to compare the manufacturer's offer barcode data to the transaction log of purchased products to confirm that the required product actually was purchased in the correct size and quantity and, if so, destroy or otherwise invalidate the manufacturer's offer. However, unless such a process is completed in a closed, controlled environment, with the ability to independently audit the manufacturer's offer redemption transaction, the possibility of fraud still exists.
Therefore, what is needed to eliminate fraud is a closed system—a controlled manufacturer's offer redemption environment in which manufacturer's offers may be verified, validated, and destroyed to prevent re-use, and the offer redemption transaction authenticated to confirm that the offer in fact was redeemed under the controlled conditions imposed by the system.